Cinema One Originals 2010: LIFE SENTENCE Review

An illusion is brilliantly
hatched. Playing alongside each other are two storylines, seemingly separated
by time and an immense change in the character of Pol (Pen Medina), a jailed
convict who doubles as an assassin for the jail warden (Archi Adamos). The illusion
is cleverly maintained, at least up until the cleverness wears off and the need
for exposition becomes imminent. The film opens with Pol's unflinching
assassination of a man, briskly revealing in a sequence so judiciously executed
Pol as a man of hollow virtues. Yet, Pol, noticeably aged, is also seen
communing with a group of other retirees, revealing a character that is
opposite the ruthless man of the opening sequence. The gargantuan distinctions
between the two Pols of the supposed two storylines of Michael Angelo Dagñalan's Layang
Bilanggo (Life Sentence) are so
gargantuan, that it is impossible not to be intrigued by what could have
converted Pol the obedient killer into Pol the gentle geriatric.

Given
that the two storylines differ in mood and style, since the storyline involving
Pol the killer is unabashed in its use of violence and portrayal of reform
institutions as ridden with corruption and exploitation while the storyline
involving Pol the elderly seems to be a quiet portraiture of people living out
the twilight of their lives, the film naturally shifts pacing, requiring a bit
of diligence and skill from the director. Thankfully, Dagñalan mostly juggles
the two storylines with understated efficiency. Yet when Dagñalan lets go of the conceit, revealing that Pol's
peaceful and reformed presence in the home for the elderly is but a sham for
his next mission as an assassin, the film loses a vital piece of what makes it
momentarily poignant, the endearing sincerity and simplicity of a life redeemed
from what seems to be an inescapable hell.

Layang Bilanggo suffers ultimately
because it is told with that conceit in mind. It cheapens the emotions sought
to be fleshed out, putting focus more on the ingenuity of the storytelling than
the story itself. The story itself though is not as notable as it thinks it is.
It's primarily a tale of redemption of a father who left his wife and daughter
decades ago and now attempts to reconnect with her without revealing himself
while waiting to eliminate his next target, a journalist who is researching
about corruption within the prison system. There are certainly moments where
the emotional heft that is being carried by Pol is exposed for some onscreen
poignancy. With the help of the consistently believable portrayals of Medina and Miriam Quiambao
as the criminal father and his daughter, respectively, Dagñalan manages to sustain
a breath of the familiar in a story that wraps itself in blatant contrivances.

The
attempts at familiarity, however, are nowhere near noble or novel, because they
are based incidentally on melodramatic turns and character motivations that are
often used to the point of garnering cliché status. The perfunctory anecdotes
in the home for the aged make up for all the film's many faults, puncturing the
convoluted main storyline with much-needed humanity. Jaime Fabregas, who plays
a retired Metrocom officer who ironically becomes Pol's best friend in the home
for the aged and later in the film, dons a grandmother's garb while wielding a
high-powered armament, adds much-needed levity to the mostly serious and
moribund affair. Thus, despite the plentiful excesses in Dagñalan's scripting and
directing, one cannot simply take away the fact that Layang Bilanggo works, even if only as a random curiosity.